The councilor of the Mixed Group in the Island Council of Lanzarote, Óscar Noda, has presented a motion for the next island council plenary session in which he requests that the Council "grant a final character to the ten million euros of surpluses for the construction project of 136 homes in Playa Blanca, as promised by the president of the Cabildo with the ICAVI and the Yaiza City Council".
For Óscar Noda, "the lack of housing is more than evident. The lack of affordable housing, moreover, is currently the main problem of the population of the island of Lanzarote. The data from ISTAC and CIS mark a clear trend, access to housing for our young people and, unfortunately, also for the not so young. The average age to become independent and access a home is over 35 years and it has been shown that, with today's salaries, it takes more than seven years of net savings from a worker's salary to be able to access a mortgage loan, something totally unfeasible".
"To all this we must add the high cost of land, the increase in second-hand housing and the average salary of a worker that, in our country, favor a perfect storm to make it impossible to access decent housing. Social emergency levels are being reached, especially if we take into account the appearance of phenomena such as vacation homes, even more influential if possible in fragmented and limited territories such as Lanzarote," he continues.
"In 2022, the Government of Yaiza", Noda continues, ceded a plot of land to the Government of the Canary Islands for the construction of housing in Playa Blanca, one of the most affected municipalities, and within its powers, found the solution and granted and deeded to the ICAVI a plot of 42,000m2 in Montaña Roja, a project of more than 35 million euros. The Director of the Canarian Housing Institute himself, Jesús Ortega, confirmed that the Cabildo of Lanzarote had committed to collaborate with ten million in the execution costs of said project, beyond the funds that the Government of the Canary Islands itself would allocate from European funds for this purpose".
In this sense, Noda concludes by saying that "it is logical that, after seeing that, recently, the Cabildo of Lanzarote has had to accept and approve an Economic and Financial Plan to continue financing itself and undertake necessary investments with surpluses to mitigate the main problems of the island, we ask them to dedicate those surpluses to undertake actions in which the important things should be prioritized and try to solve, minimally, with those few resources, a problem that affects the people of Lanzarote such as the lack of housing, without forgetting that Oswaldo Betancort committed to it. We hope he hasn't forgotten it”.